I am forever working on the posterior chain, this is the missing link for most people.It is vital not only esthetically, but for your health to ensure a strong lower back, glutes, hamstrings and calves.
A strong posterior chain will allow you to run faster, squat more, deadlift more, and make sure you fill out your jeans a lot better than most people!
There is a piece of equipment called the Reverse Hyper, and like the wonderful Glute-Ham Raise, most gyms don't have one, they are tough and not for sissies, so gyms choose to have a biceps curl machine instead....
The Reverse Hyper was invented by Louie Simmons of Westside Barbell after breaking his back.
My gym doesn't have one, so I have to make do with what I have. You can perform a very effective Reverse Hyper with a flat bench and a firm stability ball.
I was doing this last week and a trainer stopped and watched. I finished and he asked where I learned to do it and I explained I used to use a Reverse Hyper when I trained with SC, and I hated every minute of it, but knew it was a great exercise.
The trainer said he was impressed, he never saw it done like this and he thanked me, said he learned something from me.
When Maria was taping this today, another trainer and her client were watching. As I finished the client said "that is physically impossible!" and the trainer said "Wow! Amazing!"
I told them, "No, it isn't physically impossible, in fact, it is quite easy and if you did it, you would have a butt like me!"
I am demonstrating a reverse hyper in the video below. I caution you, unless you have a very strong lower back, do not hyper extend your legs up as far as I do, I can do this as I have well developed muscles in this area- beginners should try to maintain a more neutral position (don't bring your legs up so high, I wouldn't be going so high with weights on my ankles).
Once you have become accustomed to this, add weights strapped to your ankles. Make sure you perform the movement slowly and deliberately, do not swing or use momentum!
Turn up your speakers! There is a great clip by Dragonfly to accompany this short 22 second video. Email subscribers will need to navigate to the blog to see the video.
Awesome.
ReplyDeleteI was wondering the diff between rev hyper and regular hyper. Why not just do regular hypers (my gym has 3 of those)?
Thanks!
I believe you are referring to what many people call the extension, or back extension? This focus mainly on the spinal erectors, and lower back, where the reverse hyper focuses mainly on glutes and hams and then the lower back. There is a very big difference when performing them and they each train different parts of the body. A true reverse hyper has a weight bar that the back of your ankles hooks under and is very difficult to lift with your glutes and hamstrings. I have small ankle weights to help reproduce the effect.
ReplyDeleteI want to get a round butt...how many times does this exercise need to be done? Thank you!
ReplyDeleteLucy, This is only one exercise that you need to do. I think the absolute best exercise is the regular old back squat, wide stance to hit the glutes. Yuo can also do this, and you should do 3 or 4 sets of 10, just like anything else but you need to work up to it. Hip thrusts, lunges, a whole workout once a week at least. Then your glutes will also be worked on good hamstring days.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the idea for how to perform these. I failed when I tried to do it with a stability ball that was too small and my Olympic bench. Attempt two succeeded for me. To get it to work, I basically lifted the bench up on a very strong, but reasonably narrow glass table and put a soft pillow between me and the Olympic bench. That gave me enough vertical distance that my legs would not hit the floor.
ReplyDelete